


Blood and Thunder

by cywscross



Series: Tumblr Prompts 2015 [7]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fill, Slash, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 09:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3203777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cywscross/pseuds/cywscross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <strong>yozoraarashi asked: Prompt: Cross-dressing or telepathy for Urahara/Ichigo.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>yozoraarashi asked: Can I change my prompt to Soulmates/Soul Bonds for Urahara/Ichigo? I like that prompt even more than the one I previously asked for and I have never seen it done with these two. Now I really want to see it done with these two.</strong>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Thunder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yozoraarashi](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=yozoraarashi).



> At first, I was just going to do two separate drabbles (if you can still call them drabbles; I’m pretty sure drabbles aren’t supposed to be as long as I’ve been making them), one for each prompt yozoraarashi sent me, but then I started writing, and I was suddenly like ‘well telepathy between soulmates could go hand in hand, and I’ve never seen it anywhere else, so why not?’, and boom, this was the result. So I hope you don’t mind that I’ve combined them together:)

_One: The name of your soulmate appears on your skin at birth, and only you and your soulmate can see it._

_Two: Full telepathy is only possible between soulmates when the bond is discovered and acknowledged by both parties._

_Three: Humans and Shinigami both have soulmates; on rare occasions, they’ll find them with each other. Don’t find them with each other._

 

* * *

 

From the moment Kisuke learns how to read, the name _Kurosaki Ichigo_ is seared into his mind.

It’s a girl’s name, he thinks, running light fingers over the kanji along his left forearm, and while it doesn't match the surname of any of the clans in Seireitei, he’s fine with that. He himself is an adopted ward of the Shihouins, taken in after his parents died protecting the main branch, so it isn’t as if he puts much stock into noble blood like some others do.

His soulmate isn’t connected in any way to the Shihouin Clan either; he knows because Yoruichi – beautiful, charismatic, confident Yoruichi – has already been kind enough to sort through the lists of members in the branch families and the Onmitsukidou for him after he told her, and she still came up empty.

Kisuke’s still young though, so that’s alright too. Perhaps he’ll meet her once he enters the Academy, or after that, once he joins the ranks of the Gotei 13. There’s no hurry, so he’s content to wait.

 

* * *

 

He enters the Second Division the moment he graduates from the Academy, following Yoruichi like he always has. Tessai’s decided on the Kidou Corps so they won’t see each other as much anymore, but it’ll still be decades before work _really_ gets in the way of the three of them meeting up.

Kisuke still hasn't found his soulmate, but then, Yoruichi and Tessai haven’t either. While he’s still looking forward to the day he meets her, his potentially perfect fit in every way, he’s more concerned with climbing the ranks with Yoruichi right now, and proving his worth to the world.

Meeting his soulmate can wait a while longer.

 

* * *

 

The day Kisuke accepts a kill order from the newly appointed Onmitsukidou commander – the fastest Shinigami in the entirety of the Gotei 13, Shihouin Yoruichi – he ends up with the blood of three men, two women, and five children on his hands.

He does it again a month later, this time a trio of women from the Red Light District in District 8, West Rukongai.

And then he does it again three and a half months after that, the owner of an orphanage in District 13, North Rukongai, along with the sixteen kids who lived there, before setting the entire place on fire to make it look like an accident.

And again. And again. And again. His missions blur together until he can no longer remember the number of people he’s assassinated in the dark of night.

Only once did Kisuke pluck up the courage to ask. It was still early on, shortly after Yoruichi made commander, back when his kill count was still in the lower end of the double digits. “Why did my mission yesterday have to include killing that family?”

Yoruichi only shrugged vaguely, downing another cup of sake. “You're not supposed to question your orders, Kisuke, you know that. You’re just supposed to carry them out. That’s the Onmitsukidou.”

Kisuke nodded numbly, fiddling with his chopsticks, and his left sleeve slipped down to his elbow. _Kurosaki Ichigo_ stood out, stark black against pale skin, and he wondered if his soulmate would be able to even stand to be near him if she knew the things that Kisuke’s done.

“Some things are necessary, Kisuke,” Yoruichi told him wisely, golden eyes gleaming in the glow of the lamplight. “That’s what we’re here for – to do the dirty work so that other people won’t have to. It’s part of upholding the laws that the Gotei 13 stands for. And you’re doing great. You haven’t failed a single mission yet.”

Kisuke never brings the topic up again after that night. He never gets around to failing either. For Yoruichi, and because he’s simply that good, he carries out all his missions successfully.

He never stops wishing he doesn't though.

 

* * *

 

Yoruichi finds her soulmate in a girl who worships the ground she walks on, and Kisuke resents her immediately. Sui-Feng grates on his nerves because there is a universe of protective fondness in Yoruichi’s eyes whenever she looks at her new apprentice, and the moment Sui-Feng starts making noise about how irresponsible Kisuke is, how disrespectful, how informal and too familiar and improper he is to _Kisuke’s best friend_ , it barely takes a handful of months before Yoruichi signs him up for the captaincy trials without even asking for his opinion.

(Once upon a time, he thinks maybe he would've also resented Sui-Feng for gaining Yoruichi’s affections so easily, because back when he was much younger, he looked up to Yoruichi, almost like Sui-Feng does now, and he appreciated her for her clever and mischievous nature. He even fancied himself a little in love with her, entertained the idle thought that maybe he and Yoruichi would have platonic soulmates, which would leave them free to-

But that’s neither here nor there, and that crush died a swift death not even a month into Kisuke’s official tenure as Yoruichi’s second-in-command. He’ll die for her and kill for her because she’s one of the two people in the world who knows him inside out and still stands by him, so he’ll do the same for her, but his blind admiration for her is gone.

He looks in the mirror these days and hates what he sees. He would never want to spend the rest of his life with someone exactly like himself.)

With Sui-Feng’s appearance though, Yoruichi’s clearly moved on.

Maybe it’s time for Kisuke to do the same.

(He just wishes that he has his own soulmate to help him do it.)

 

* * *

 

Kisuke sucks at being a captain. He alienates his lieutenant without even trying, he shares his most important responsibilities with a man who would take infinite joy out of stabbing Kisuke in the back at the first opportunity, he’s happier doing research by himself than he is managing an entire squad of Shinigami, and he doesn't know how to even _start_ getting to know his subordinates better. There was no such requirement in the Onmitsukidou after all; the only ground rule each member had to obey was to fulfill any and all orders that come from their superiors, and Kisuke’s only superior was Yoruichi. Everyone else did what he told them to, nothing more, nothing less.

As captain of the Twelfth however, everyone watches him, judges him, and even Kisuke secretly finds himself lacking.

The only thing he doesn't screw up is science, so he throws himself into that, a field he enjoys, and he shapes his entire division around it, conforming or transferring the Shinigami that were already part of the Twelfth Division, and accepting only the new recruits who have an inclination towards technological development.

(On occasion, he would flip through their files, looking for a name even now. He never finds it.)

So he sticks to what he’s good at, assassination aside, and he advances the Gotei 13 by leaps and bounds with new inventions and upgraded weaponry and scientific breakthroughs.

And then, not even a decade later, he screws up even that.

 

* * *

 

Kisuke is a fugitive and a failure (eight times over), and somehow, he can still find it in himself to be vindictively satisfied that Yoruichi chose him over Sui-Feng, but then, he’s long since stopped claiming to be any sort of a good man. He regrets dragging her down with him, regrets dragging Tessai down as well, but he can’t regret that they’re both here at his side.

(On the other hand, a part of Yoruichi might quite possibly never forgive him, and he hasn't forgotten how she chose Sui-Feng over him once before. But Shihouin Yoruichi is a princess with the nature of a cat, and she’ll always do what she wants, when she wants, with very little regard to even those closest to her.)

The Hollowfied Shinigami however... well. There’s not much else Kisuke can do for them now that he’s stabilized them besides getting to work on trying to find a cure. They’re still unconscious, and still somewhat feverish. Kisuke’s had to strip them out of their torn, sweat-soaked clothing, which means he’s also glimpsed each of their soulmate marks, _marks that he shouldn't even be able to see_ , and yet he does anyway. Under any other circumstances, he would already be researching the why and how of it, yet he simply can't find it in himself to get excited about it right now.

Because a soulmate's name is borderline sacred, not something for the entire world to see, and even though it was Aizen who kick-started the Hollowfication in these eight Shinigami, Kisuke is still at least partially responsible for their conditions.

It makes him sick, especially since he doesn't know how to fix it.  If he's honest with himself, he's pretty sure he won't be able to fix  _any_ of this, and Shinji and Hiyori and all the others are going to have to spend the rest of their lives living with Hollow instincts and using clothes to cover up their soulmate marks.

It is strange though – what are the odds that almost all of them are already bonded with each other? Of the lot, only Yadoumaru and Ushouda have names that Kisuke doesn't recognize. Muguruma and Kuna are no surprise though, they’re notoriously close, much like siblings no matter how much the former yells at the latter, and Ootoribashi and Aikawa were widely known throughout Seireitei to be good friends. Shinji and Hiyori on the other hand... well, perhaps they aren’t such a shock either, though Kisuke does hope that they’re of the platonic variety, and then he promptly stops thinking about it because there are some things that even his curiosity doesn't want to know.

They’re faded though, the marks. Just a little, not as midnight black as all soulmate marks are supposed to be. Kisuke prays that they’ll stay that way now that the Hollowfication process has been halted from further harm to their hosts.

Absently, he rubs at his forearm. He wonders if he’ll ever meet his own soulmate now that he’s been exiled from Soul Society.

Perhaps it’s for the best that he doesn't.

 

* * *

 

Almost eighty years later, Shiba Isshin meets Kurosaki Masaki, and between an idiot who doesn't understand responsibility and a girl looking for an escape from the expectations of her family, of course it would be a whirlwind romance.

(Two weeks after Isshin deserts both the Gotei 13 _and_ his clan, Yoruichi brings back news of Aizen reporting to Central 46 about Isshin running off to be with his Human soulmate, destination unknown, and as a result, the Shiba Clan has already been cast out of Seireitei, shamed and shunned by the crime that its clan head has committed.)

Isshin and Masaki aren’t the first pair of soulmates from two different worlds, but they _are_ the first Shinigami-Human ( _-Quincy_ ) soulmate pair that Kisuke has ever personally witnessed in all the centuries he’s lived.

That isn’t what makes him step up and offer his help. No, it’s the Quincy girl’s last name, and alarm bells start ringing in his own head, all shrieking the same thing.

_Coud Kisuke’s soulmate be a Human too?_

 

* * *

 

He looks; of course he does. Even though he knows he’s a horrible person, and his soulmate deserves so much better, he can’t help it. He wants something for himself for once, something to call his, someone who will choose him before anybody else.

Kisuke is a selfish man through and through.

But Masaki doesn't have any sisters. In fact, there are no other Kurosakis anymore, the reason the Ishidas took her in in the first place, and if one of them was Kisuke’s soulmate, the name on his skin would've disappeared when she died.

It’s frustrating, and the disappointment is all the more potent after the spike of hope he felt upon hearing Masaki’s surname, only to hit a dead-end once again.

Kisuke’s beginning to think that the gods are trying to tell him something. Honestly, it sounds a lot like _give up_.

 

* * *

 

Another ten years later, Isshin and Masaki’s first child is born, a boy with a shock of orange hair, and they name him Kurosaki Ichigo, ‘First Protector’.

When Kisuke gets the call from an exuberant Isshin, he hangs up, makes his way to his underground training area, closes the hatch behind him, and then he starts laughing.

He laughs and laughs, he laughs until he cries, and then he cries until Yoruichi busts her way through the flimsy trapdoor to get to him, and for the first time in over two centuries, she hugs him.

It helps, a little, but nowhere near enough to stave off the guilt, because he’s got plans. Still ambiguous plans at this point in time, but plans nonetheless, for a human child of a Shinigami and a semi-Hollowfied Quincy, a child who’s bound to grow up powerful, and just might be a match for Aizen Sousuke.

So this is the gods’ grand joke. Kisuke hasn't just ruined his own life; he’s destined to ruin his soulmate’s life as well.

 

* * *

 

Isshin bans him from seeing Ichigo. The man doesn't know of course; Kisuke hasn't told him, and neither Yoruichi nor Tessai will, but the Shinigami insists on it anyway.

“I want him to have a proper childhood,” Isshin declares. “He’s already seeing Pluses, and his reiryoku is off the charts, so he’ll be able to fight Aizen when the time comes, but for now, I just want him to be a kid, so I don’t want Shinigami or Quincy or whatever else hanging around him until he’s older.”

Kisuke can’t even begin to point out all the things that are wrong about that statement. Isshin is a _moron_. Yes, there are people out there like Kisuke who know better but do wrong things anyway, but there are also people like Isshin who do things that are wrong but don’t know any better. The first may be worse than the second, but it’s the second that drives Kisuke crazy, especially when it’s coming from a centuries-old Shinigami who’s older than _Kisuke_.

And Kisuke’s first instinct is to argue against Isshin’s ultimatum, to assert his right to visit _his soulmate_ anytime he damn well pleases, but he doesn't have a leg to stand on without giving himself away, and he doesn't trust Isshin nearly enough to reveal the name on his skin. Everyone is born with the instinct to remain silent about their soulmate mark, to keep it to themselves, so Ichigo won’t be giving it away anytime soon, not to mention he’ll have to learn how to read and talk first anyway.

And what’s Kisuke going to do with a baby soulmate anyway? The kids at his shop were ready-made so it’s not like he knows how to even _hold_ a baby to begin with.

And something that innocent and pure... He probably shouldn't touch it.

So he agrees, outwardly unconcerned, inwardly raging more than he has at any other time in his entire life.

There’s nothing for it though. Kisuke’s waited this long. He can wait a little while longer.

 

* * *

 

The first time he lays eyes on Kurosaki Ichigo, the boy is seven, and he’s sniffling, face tearstained and blotchy with a black eye already forming, and his clothes are scuffed up and dirty like someone’s been pushing him around.

Kisuke feels a rush of uncharacteristic anger well up inside him, but he suppresses it in favour of drawing closer, unable to turn away.

There’s a little girl, probably around four, and she’s unmistakeably a Plus, hovering just over Ichigo’s right shoulder and looking between the boy and the small vase of flowers and a picture frame next to the wall. Both have been knocked over, and Ichigo is in the process of fixing that.

It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. Kisuke sighs deeply. Wonderful. Even at seven years of age, his soulmate is such a good person that he’s willing to get beaten up for a ghost that nobody else even believes in.

He stays for longer than he should, watching Ichigo pull out a water bottle from his cute wolf backpack ( _Does he like wolves then?_ ) to refill the vase. There’s a crack in the glass of the picture frame too, and Kisuke hears Ichigo promise the ghost that he’ll come back tomorrow with a new one for her.

The girl smiles, but she looks tearful at the same time, and her fingers reach out to touch the purpling skin around Ichigo’s left eye.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Ichigo announces, scrubbing a sleeve over his face. “I’ll see you again tomorrow, okay?”

Kisuke stays until Ichigo jogs out of sight, and then he turns to head home as well. He thinks he’ll wait to perform Konsou on the girl, just until Ichigo comes back with that frame.

 

* * *

 

Ichigo is nine when Kisuke sees him again, and Masaki is dead. Kisuke’s been out of town visiting the Visored, and he comes back to a funeral. Isshin is grieving, the twins are crying, but Ichigo’s eyes are bone-dry. His face is bleached white, and he holds onto his sisters' hands like they’re the last tether he has on earth, and he’ll fly apart without them.

Kisuke remains hidden for the duration of the funeral, Yoruichi in cat form beside him, and Tessai lingering even farther back, and they don’t leave until everyone else besides the Kurosaki family is gone. He thinks he catches a glimpse of Ishida Ryuuken too, but the man is gone before he can be certain.

He isn’t all that surprised when Isshin storms his shop later to rant at him.

“I told you we would be out of town,” Kisuke interjects coolly after twenty minutes of listening to Isshin shout at him about the death of his wife and near loss of his son, and that Kisuke doesn't have enough of a heart to care about either. “And when it comes down to it, it isn’t my job to take care of your family, Isshin-san, it’s yours.”

Isshin stalks out again eventually, still livid, still hurting.

Kisuke doesn't move until he feels what little is left of Isshin’s reiatsu fade into the distance. And then he looks down at the white-knuckled grip he has on his Zanpakutou in his lap, and he has to make an effort to unclench them.

Later that night, he leaves a stuffed animal on Ichigo’s windowsill, a wolf with soft grey fur and amber eyes. He’s not sure whether or not nine-year-olds are too old for stuffed animals, especially boys, but the next night, when he goes to check on Ichigo, he spots the boy in bed with his two sisters curled on either side of him, and the wolf is cuddled in Yuzu’s arms, tucked between her and her brother.

Well, that works too. The night after that, he drops off two more wolves, one with black fur and blue eyes, and another with white fur and black eyes. They're small consolations, but even Kisuke can’t bring back the dead no matter how much he wants to.

 

* * *

 

Ichigo is ten the next time Kisuke catches sight of him. The boy is shopping, or rather, he’s just about done, carefully counting out bills and coins for the cashier before grabbing his five grocery bags and stumbling out the door, weighed down and struggling. But he doesn't stop until he gets home, and Kisuke ends up sitting on a tree branch with a clear view of the kitchen window like some creepy stalker, watching Ichigo muddle through a cookbook to produce an only slightly charred dinner instead of making himself scarce like he should be.

By the time he does leave, Kisuke is already contemplating how bad an idea it would be to polish up his assassination skills on Isshin’s hide, especially when Kisuke realizes that it’s Ichigo who does the cooking five days out of seven.

He suppresses the urge though. Instead, about three weeks later, as soon as Ichigo heads for the bathroom for his morning routine, Kisuke drops off a large container of breakfast foods on Ichigo’s windowsill, still hot and fresh off the stove. Kisuke was absolutely abysmal at cooking a century ago, never having bothered to learn back when he was a Shinigami officer, but almost a hundred years in the Human world is more than enough time for him to learn.

Feeling utterly ridiculous, Kisuke still ends up squatting down behind a bush when Ichigo pulls open the window and sticks his head out, obviously looking for whoever’s been leaving him gifts. Kisuke holds his breath, waiting for Ichigo to take the food inside. He blinks in surprise when Ichigo speaks instead.

“I can feel you, you know,” The boy calls out, and before Kisuke can figure out what that’s supposed to mean, he feels a tingle at the back of his mind that almost sends him toppling straight into the bush headfirst.

“Are you-” Ichigo breaks off, hesitating before forging on again determinedly. “I think... you’re my soulmate? ’Cause my m- my mom described it once, what the telepathy thing was like between soulmates, and she said she could always sense Dad at the back of her mind, like a buzz, except it wasn't annoying, and that’s sorta how it is for me, except I don’t always feel it, but I can feel it right now, so that probably means you’re around somewhere and hiding.”

Kisuke has no idea how the boy can go on for that long without breathing.

“And I dunno why you're hiding,” Ichigo continues in far too solemn tones. “’Cause I wouldn't mind meeting you, you know? But if you don’t wanna come out just yet ’cause you're not ready or something, then that’s okay too.” His voice lifts into something lighter. “Thanks for the wolves though. And thanks for the food. You don’t have to, you never have to give me anything, but I appreciate it anyway.”

And then there’s a clink as Ichigo picks up the container before withdrawing into the house and closing the window behind him. Only then does Kisuke rise to his full height and slip away, squirreling Ichigo’s words away at the bottom of his heart like they’re priceless treasures, and simultaneously feeling downright terrified of the telepathic bond that – unknown to Kisuke until now – has already begun to form.

What if Ichigo sees something in Kisuke’s mind that he won’t like? Scratch that, there’s no ‘if’ about it. There’s nothing about Kisuke that Ichigo will approve of.

...And now he’s worrying over receiving approval from a ten-year-old. Kisuke has officially become a pathetic old man obsessing over a child, and oh god, that makes him sound like a _paedophile_.

He stops in his tracks.

That’s... _really_ not good.

 

* * *

 

Kisuke stays away for the next five years. He still leaves food, but only twice a week, and each year on Ichigo’s birthday, he can’t quite stop himself from leaving a popular video game or a book in the guise of pure fiction about Shinigami and Hollows, but he never lingers, not even that one time when Kisuke wasn't cautious enough when dropping off some breakfast, and Ichigo all but threw open the window and halfway launched himself out of it in an attempt to catch him, apparently at the end of his patience and clearly aggravated with Kisuke’s absurd rendition of ding dong ditch.

Kisuke fled and even stopped the food runs for two months.

It looks like he can add coward to his repertoire of titles as well. Then again, he could've added that name centuries ago when Yoruichi started handing him those bloodstained missions and Kisuke never said no.

 

* * *

 

Ichigo is fifteen when they finally meet face to face. The boy comes in with Rukia, tall and lithely muscled from years of martial arts and brawls, his signature scowl on his face, but it melts away in an instant the second he meets Kisuke’s eyes.

The silence is thick and wrought with tension, so much so that even Rukia stares between them with an increasingly wary sort of confusion.

They don’t talk right away. Kisuke caters to Rukia’s consumer needs, all the while feeling like he has lead sitting in the pit of his stomach because he is aware – so very aware – of the Hougyoku stored in Rukia’s Gigai and slowly merging with her soul, and of the plans he already has lined up for Ichigo.

Kisuke has – on and off – spent the past eight years watching over Ichigo, and he’s _still_ going to point the boy at Aizen and fire.

He’s a horrible person. Ichigo is never going to forgive him for this once he finds out, provided he even survives the impending battles.

So it’s probably a good thing that Kisuke resigned himself to being horrible and hated a long time ago.

 

**Author's Note:**

> **Please leave a review on your way out.**


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